Smartwatch: new match fixing tool or still a fitness tracker

The reaction of English media on the reputation of Pakistan's cricket team is a crux of frustration on the good performance

Recently, Pakistan's cricket players Babar Azam and Asad Shafiq were spotted wearing smartwatches in Test match against England. The ICC officials contacted the players to remove them in light of the law in its rules stating that players are not allowed to possess any communication devices on the field and in dressing room.

Withstanding the fact that these rules specifically address smart watches, in retrospect, it was also alarming that the team management failed to educate the players on their usage during the game.

Smartwatches are often used by athletes to keep a check on variables such as heart rate, distances covered, calories burnt and so on. Much of this is utilised by athlete to judge personal physical performance throughout the day. These qualities, of this modern device, would have been the probable behind players wearing smart watches. As they are elite athletes of, the most famous and watched, sport of the country, hence, one needs to know this stuff.

ICC in the past few years has come under great scrutiny to catch match fixing and various illegal activities during the game. None of the bigger cases were gathered by ICC in these years, its either the journalists, commentators or the cameramen, who have succeeded in exposing them.

Previously, in ball tempering scandal, player was caught with sandpaper in his pocket by the South African cameramen on tip of Fanie de Villiers. Even the spot fixing scandal was presented as a result of a sting operation by the media tabloid, back in 2010. Thus, it seems here, as ICC is trying to make themselves look proactive and useful, by making a big deal over smartwatches.

While, ICC focusing on smartwatches with little proof of wrongdoing with whether the phones were connected to these watches, is farfetched intuition based on bias or inaptness for modern technology. Biased, as keeping in view at the same time, the history of corruption associated with the team, ICC's policy of over-focusing on certain nations does get them overlooking the individual integrity of the current players as it may lead to hypocritical outcomes.

So the question is, will this ban on the smartwatches turn out to be bad for the game on the whole? At the same time the reaction of English media on the reputation of Pakistan's cricket team is a crux of frustration on the good performance in first two days of the Lord’s test.

In conclusion, I recommend ICC to revise its rules regarding usage of modern gadgets such as smartwatches, and rather utilise them. If there is any chance of abuse, then keep checks on them but do not outright a ban on the usage.

Should rather monitor activity of smartwatches before and after the game, for instance. For the English media and fans, please! do not blame a smartwatch for 184 runs in first innings, like reverse swing, for it too can assist your players to perform better in the next ashes, who knows!